It's time for my review of A Christmas Carol.I've seen two other shows with the storyline of A Christmas Carol, one being the musical 'Scrooge' with Tommy Steele in 2012 and the other being a play adaption last year starring Jim Broadbent. I have also seen a few film adaptions, so I know the story rather well, which came in handy when seeing this production at the LOST theatre, as there were several issues which, if I had not known the story beforehand, would've caused me to not have much clue what was going on. This production has potential with some good qualities to it, but is let down by certain aspects of the show. I'll start with what I feel would improve the production and go on to the good aspects of this production. When I went on press night (20th December), the show seemed far from performance ready. There were several sound issues and actors forgetting their cues. These were the main issues of the show and with more rehearsals/previews these could've been fixed. It just didn't seem ready to be professionally performed in front of a live audience. The sounds issues made it very hard to understand certain dialogue and lyrics, but fortunately with my prior knowledge of the show I knew what was going on. As said in a few other reviews I have now read, the show has a very mixed ability cast, which makes things a little awkward to watch. My only other criticism would be that there were certain songs that went on for a little bit too long and could've been shortened. One example that comes to mind is the song 'Mr. Fezziwig's Annual Christmas Ball'. I genuinely think these issues can be changed and fixed and if this is done so, this would be a stunning production. Good points to the show include the lighting and stage projections. The stage projections were really innovative, not many shows use projections but they worked very well for this show. Cast members who stood out were Piers Granham as Scrooge, Richard Lounds as Marley, Joe Brown as Scrooge at 18 and Kyrana Shea as several roles. Piers Granham reminded me of Kelsey Grammar, who funnily enough played Scrooge in the TV adaption of this musical. He was missed a lot when he was off-stage (which isn't often) and I feel he carried the show from the beginning to the end. Joe Brown has such a lovely voice, whenever he was part of the ensemble he outshone all of his fellow cast members. I think he would do very well if he went for a singing career. Another highlight of the show is the wonderful tap dancing number at the end of act one, that was sublime!
The featured star of A Christmas Carol is, drum roll please... PIERS GARNHAM!
Piers delivers a great performance as Scrooge and is one of the shows saving graces. Scrooge's 'change of heart' is portrayed really well and thanks to Piers you can really see the difference in the character.
Now for my final verdict of A Christmas Carol. I give A Christmas Carol...
I give this rating because I did not feel the show was performance ready at all, it however has certain cast members, with superb lighting design and stage projections which save the show.
Join me next time when I will be reviewing Cinderella.
Thanks for reading!
-The Reviewer
No comments:
Post a Comment